Exam 4: Sensing and Perceiving Our World

Vittoria has grown up in the digital age. The movies her parents play are all on DVD. In her elementary school's health class, the teacher shows a movie on an old movie projector. When it's over, Vittoria helps the teacher take the reels off the projector and put them in their cases. She notices as she does so that the video tape is actually thousands of tiny still images. She is bewildered and wonders how still images can create the illusion of movement. The principle behind motion pictures is

When we look head-on at a rectangular picture frame hanging on the wall, it appears as a rectangle. If we walk off to one side and look at the frame from an angle we still recognize that it is a rectangle, but from that perspective the image processed on our retina is a trapezoid. Our brain compensates for the distortion of the shape by taking into account visual cues about distance and depth to keep our perception of the picture frame constant. How do we recognize the shape even when our senses are giving us other information?

Patrick's mother shows him the constellations in the night sky. Patrick likes the Big Dipper the best, because it's the easiest for him to see. On what principles of sensation and perception must Patrick rely to see the stars form what looks like a big spoon?

Some birds of prey have such exceptional visual acuity that they can see small animals from thousands of feet in the air. Visual acuity is greatest when an image projects directly onto a small area of the retina that contains no rods but many cones. Some birds of prey have more than one of these areas. The area is called a

John-Paul volunteers to help his science teacher with a demonstration. The teacher hands John-Paul a card with a dot on the left-hand side and an X on the right-hand side. Following the teacher's instructions, John-Paul closes his right eye, focuses on the X, and slowly moves the card toward his face. The dot seems to disappear magically, though of course when he opens both eyes it is still there. The teacher explains that this is caused by a blind spot. What causes blind spots?

The pygmy people live in the dense rain forests of Africa, and few ever see wide open spaces. An anthropologist once took a pygmy out of the rain forest and showed him a wide plain where buffalo were grazing. The buffalo were so far away that they looked like insects to the pygmy, and when the anthropologist drove closer to them, the pygmy was convinced that some form of witchcraft was being used to change the insects into buffalo. Because of his lack of experience with distant objects, the pygmy had not developed

Using the image on the box, Tovah is putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The picture of the completed puzzle allows her to guess how and where the pieces fit. We can refer to Tovah's interpretation of individual pieces in light of the expectation created by the box picture as

Alessandra's family has always had at least one pet, so she is comfortable around dogs. Her friend Tyra, however, was bitten by a dog a few years ago, and is now afraid of all dogs. While Alessandra and Tyra are walking to school, they are approached by a dog that is wagging its tail. Alessandra bends down to pet the dog, but Tyra backs up because she is afraid. Both girls are ______ the same dog, but the way each experiences or ______ the dog is different.